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The Director of Public Prosecutions today said any new guidelines on assisted suicide would apply in Britain as well as abroad.
Keir Starmer said he wanted to correct the misapprehension that the law on assisted suicide which applies in this country would in future only affect those going abroad to help loved ones die.
“This is not a policy that's going to apply only to those who go abroad. Newspapers are saying that, but they're wrong,” he said. “This policy is going to cover all assisted suicides. The same broad principles will apply. They've got to apply to all acts, in the jurisdiction or out of it. We won't have separate rules for Dignitas.”
Mr Starmer's comments follow the landmark Lords ruling last week on the case of multiple sclerosis sufferer Debbie Purdy.
In the judgment, the Law Lords backed the 46-year-old's bid to force Mr Starmer to issue guidelines setting out the circumstances in which her husband would be prosecuted if he travelled with her to the Swiss assisted suicide clinic Dignitas. The decision was greeted by some observers as paving the way for the legalisation of assisted suicide. But Mr Starmer today insisted that any substantive change would have to be enacted by Parliament. He also played down the extent to which his guidelines would change enforcement of the law.
He said: “There's nothing much I can do to nudge [Parliament] along. They're divided, there's no inclination to change the law, so we have no choice but to produce this policy.”
He added: “We can't change the law, just fill in the policy. Not everyone has the means to go abroad to commit suicide, and a political decision has to be made on whether some assisted suicide is legal.”
In the past year, 23 Britons have died at Dignitas. Several hundred more are believed to be on its waiting list.
Prosecutors remain reluctant to set out a blanket policy detailing under which circumstances assisted suicide could be allowed. The new guidelines are likely to allow for considerable discretion by the Crown Prosecution Service.
